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Sunday, May 10, 2015

Comparison of Attitudinal Polling

Four of the polling houses have asked questions on the performance of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. ACNielsen and Ipsos asked if you approve/disapprove of the their performance. Newspoll asked whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the way they are doing their job. And ReachTEL gave you a five-point Likert scale on which to grade their performance ranging across very good, good, satisfactory, poor and very poor.

While the questions and methods differ a little, each is essentially asking respondents if they are happy or unhappy with the performance of the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. While the levels of happiness may differ between polling houses, the timing of the ups-and-downs are remarkably consistent between the polling houses. The levels of unhappiness are more closely aligned.

On the happiness and unhappiness maps, the Prime Minister has been on a roller coaster. Newspoll particularly has happiness on the improve at the moment for the Prime Minister. All of of the polls report that unhappiness has declined since the Prince Phillip knighthood and leadership spill motion (late January/early February 2015).

It will be interesting to see whether this latest movement in happiness will translate into a more substantial improvement in two-party preferred voting intention for the government. For the Leader of the Opposition, these attitudinal maps have been relatively flat for many months. Nonetheless, there is a hint that things might be declining a just little in the last three months.